“Not one of the villagers was bold enough to try to warn the French garrison of the peril that awaited them, for it was plain that the Germans were planning to lay in wait for the Frenchmen when they came to the village on the following morning.

“Soon German soldiers began entering the houses, one soldier to each house, in which he took his station, cowering the occupants by terrible threats.

“Little Mathilde, when she heard the soldier assigned to their home bang on the door with the butt of his rifle, fled to the kitchen, where she stood listening and watching.  She nearly cried out when the soldier thrust the bayonet of his rifle at her father, and all the resentment of her race at such injustice rose up within her.

“‘I shall save them,’ she breathed.

“Mathilde slipped out through the kitchen door into the walled garden, and, climbing the wall, peered over.  She could see German horsemen and German infantrymen everywhere, the moonlight flashing on their helmets and rifles as they moved rapidly about.  How she should be able to get over the wall without discovery she did not know.  A heavy black cloud at this moment drifted across the sky, hiding the face of the moon for a few moments, and when the cloud had passed Mathilde was no longer on the garden wall.  She lay prone on the ground in a field on the opposite side of the wall.  Horsemen were all about her.  Now and then a horse narrowly missed stepping on her, and those Uhlans must have wondered that night why their horses were so skittish.

“Every time she saw an opening the little heroine would dart ahead; each time a cloud passed between earth and moon she gained a little distance.  Once a Uhlan’s horse jumped clear over her and kicked viciously at her after it had landed on its feet.  You see, the grass in the fields was high, there being no men to cut it.  Had it not been for the grass, Mathilde never could have accomplished what she did.

“At last she was clear of them, and then how she did run; she fairly flew up the hill, stopping only when a French sentry halted her to demand what she wanted.

“‘I would speak with your captain,’ panted Mathilde.

“The sentry laughed.

“’Think you my captain sits awake all night that he may receive calls from the villagers?’ he demanded.

“‘But,’ begged the girl, ’the Uhlans have come.  They are even now in the houses that they may come out and shoot you down when you go to the village tomorrow.’

“’You are dreaming, my pretty miss.  Go back to your sleep.  It is a nightmare you are telling me.  Return and dream no more.’

“Mathilde begged and pleaded, to the great amusement of the sentry.  The child grew angry.  She stamped and raged.  Then she adopted a new plan.  Throwing herself on the ground the little girl rolled and screamed and screamed.

“‘Stop it!  You’ll wake the garrison,’ he commanded.